They're touring and coming to my hometown in November. Just a hunch they'll be giving these CDs away at the door for free.

"oh they're playing some new tunes...hmm time for beer and a pee. Let me know when they get back to playing the hits."

Too true and sad IMO. I have been utterly disgusted with Styx not doing a new record over the past 14 years. I would rather they have released three or four exceedingly average albums with a few special gems each than do NOTHING but play the nostalgia circuit in that time frame. But I realize that is the taste of the average attendee, it's just not mine.

To me bands make music. They write and they perform. Amputated creativity is a band's saddest attribute and lowest point.

The other two singles are great. Radio Silence has the best kind of Man In The Wilderness vibes, and A Hundred Million Miles From Home is a couple of production points away from literally just being back in the mid seventies, like ELO meets the Eagles in the best way possible.

Lots to ingest here. Hard to believe the band released a 70s style prog concept album fully recorded on analog tape...in 2017. Think classic Styx mixed with flourishes of Floyd, Kansas, ELO, and even some nods to Queen throughout...with a Bowie-esque theme. A record meant to be listened to in a single sitting with headphones. Many of the tracks work as transition pieces between songs, so sequentially versus picking and choosing cuts is the way to go.. Given the album's 42 minute running time it's a very digestible easy listen.

Whatever you ultimately think, it bears multiple listens. It was surely much denser and involved and layered and ambitious than I EVER expected from the band at this point; a band creatively dormant the past 14 years.

The spacey theme might seem silly and surely a bit pretentious (and maybe dated, even despite our current mission to Mars), but beyond the theme there is a ton to enjoy here musically. And honestly, the theme itself really grounds it in the 70s as well, truth be told. It actually serves the project's retro feel.

Had these been DeYoung's vocals in the place of Gowan's, you would swear this is a 1979 or 1980 follow up to Pieces Of Eight. That alone is worth about three listens.